Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

Out of this world influence is a very important aspect of the Death Note universe.
Shinigami, their Death Notes, and several other supernatural aspects are major factors in this story. We don't know much about of them, and most of the information we have comes either from the Shinigami themselves (and they can lie) or from the so-called "How to use" rules for Death Note.
Of course, the latter are far from actually being just "How to use", especially with rules such as XXXVI

Spoiler:

There are male and female gods of death,but it is neither permitted,nor possible for them to have sexual relations with humans.
The gods of death also cannot have sex with each other.

Rather, these are an attempt to answer some of the readers questions.
A list of them was on infoseek, but it is no longer there.
There are two sets of them - one being in Japanese, the other in English.
How different are they?
What exactly do those rules mean, what would happen if ...? Why are some of them so controversial and illogical? Are all of them true? What made the author create such rules?
Please discuss these and other questions regarding anything supernatural in the Death Note here.

I think everything the rules say about remaining lifespans (i.e. halving one's life in exchange for the eyes) is false, the main reason being the Death Note itself.
We already know that if you kill a murderer his victim's life would be extended.
And Kira is killing dozens of those every day, irreversibly changing the fates of all their future victims. Add the "butterfly effect" - and it becomes obvious that no such thing as "remaining lifespan" could exist.
I think this rule is a Deus ex machina, reflecting the author's dislike for superpowered characters and his desire to kill'em off faster.

"You cannot kill humans with less than 12 minutes of life left (in human calculatons)."

I guess this means that the wacko who was going to kill Misa along with himself would really only have killed Misa

Where was it written that he was going to kill himself too?

Quote:

rule XXXIV

"...a god of death who comes to the human world，in the objective to kill the owner of the DEATH NOTE，will not be able to do so."

"Only a god of death that has passed on their DEATH NOTE to a human is able to kill the owner of the DEATH NOTE."

Rem can't really kill Light

Rem's objective wasn't to kill Light so only the second rule would possibly apply and Rem passed on a note to Misa which would mean she isn't affected by that rule either. (These rules are really a plot hole cover for a later event though.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by SinsI

I think everything the rules say about remaining lifespans (i.e. halving one's life in exchange for the eyes) is false, the main reason being the Death Note itself.
We already know that if you kill a murderer his victim's life would be extended.
And Kira is killing dozens of those every day, irreversibly changing the fates of all their future victims. Add the "butterfly effect" - and it becomes obvious that no such thing as "remaining lifespan" could exist.
I think this rule is a Deus ex machina, reflecting the author's dislike for superpowered characters and his desire to kill'em off faster.

Many of the murders were already in jail/arrested and were unlikely to kill again. However, for those who possibly would kill another person, the rule is probably meant to be interpreted as you can't kill someone to knowingly extending another's.

Is there a limit to the things you can write with?
What would happen if you write a name with a pencil and erase it afterward?

You can write with anything, including things like blood or cosmetics (ZOMGFORESHADOWING!), as long as it remains as legible letters.

Death Note: How to Use It XI covers most of your next question;

Even after the individual's name, the time of death, and death condition on the Death Note were filled out, the time and condition of death can be altered as many times as you want, as long as it is changed within 6 minutes and 40 seconds from the time it was filled it. But, of course, this is only possible before the victims dies.

Whenever you want to change anything written on the Death Note within 6 minutes and 40 seconds after you wrote, you must first rule out the characters you want to erase with two straight lines.

As you see above, the time and condition of death can be changed, but once the victim's name has been written, the individual's death can never be avoided.

And HTUI XLIII goes over it once more, just in case;

It is useless trying to erase names written in the Death Note with erasers or white-out.

Not concerning the above rules...
My favorite rule has always been from XXXVI, as mentioned in the first post of this thread. I understand why it was written, to answer fans' questions avoid as many creepy fanfics as possible, but still. It's called "Death Note: How to Use It" and that has nothing to do with actually using the Note XD

I'm especially interested in the punishments that the Death Gods receive for breaking the rules... Considering the highest-level ones result in death, the Shingaimi must not break the rules very often. I guess they're vunerable to things in their own realm.

well the rules dont make much sence cuz i got the 'how to use 13' n they 'explain' the rules n all but all they r doing is re-writeing them

anyways my fave. rule is the one that was first posted ^_^
its funny to me
n also the one that says :
the god of death will not die from lack of sleep. moreover, gods of death do not really need sleep. the means of sleep for gods of death is essentialy different from humens and is merely lazyness.

They pretty much are. Shinigami lead pretty boring and crappy lives. It's the trade off for being immortal. Human's only live a short time but can have much more fufilling lives and the human world is much more interesting. Balances everything out.

I think everything the rules say about remaining lifespans (i.e. halving one's life in exchange for the eyes) is false, the main reason being the Death Note itself.
We already know that if you kill a murderer his victim's life would be extended.
And Kira is killing dozens of those every day, irreversibly changing the fates of all their future victims. Add the "butterfly effect" - and it becomes obvious that no such thing as "remaining lifespan" could exist.
I think this rule is a Deus ex machina, reflecting the author's dislike for superpowered characters and his desire to kill'em off faster.

You know, that would be a humorous point -- if Ryuk knows all along that it's impossible for Light to be saving anyone with the use of a Death Note, and just laughs to himself about it.

(That would also imply that people who he thought he saved early on would not have died, but that's not much of a stretch.)